him, thy had only been guilty of a mauvaise
plaisanterie They had merely made him and
the old woman exchange garments, and dance
for them while they drank some spirits and
water and smoked their short clay pipes. It
was very humiliating to him, he remarked,
but to them it was, no doubt, very fuuny.

Eventually the old Baron became very
ill. Several military surgeons went to see
him; but they all declared to my husband
that his case was a hopeless one. And so
it proved to be; for he lingered on till he
died. Amongst his papers was found a
will—a very short one—by which he
bequeathed to my husband (whom he appointed
his sole executor) all that he might die
possessed of in the colony of New South Wales.
His effects, as may be supposed, were not
very valuable intrinsically; but we prized
them very highly in remembrance of the
old gentleman. He was buried at Waldsthal,
and his tombstone is still there. The cottage
was accidentally burnt down, and the place
has since become a ruin.

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

ALL the year round: its changes but remind us
    Life hath its "must" and "may be" as of yore;
For the same hues that tinge the clouds behind us
    Colour the shapings of the mists before.
The future year: it seems a golden glory
    Betwixt young faces and the morning light,
A tremulous dull haze before the hoary,
   Through, whose faint redness shine the stars of night.

All the year round go bridals forth, and hearses,
    Love-troth and battle-cry, the curse, the prayer
The slave's low moaning, and the poet's verses,
    Together reach the undulating air;
Round the full household, here, one joyful mother
    Wreathes her rich love, a bower of living bloom,
That Death hath never enter'd; there, another
    Must plant hers, drooping o'er one little tomb.

All the year round: in dungeons deep and lonely,
    Time's falling life-drops load the brain like lead,
That clear as wine to happy hearts seem only
    One swift libation unto Laughter shed.
Millions of pleasant homes the land adorn,
    While homeless Hunger, wearying for one,
Dies on the road 'mid plenteous fields of corn
    Bright'ning like golden mem'ries of the sun.

All the year round are little children roaming
   Where the hip reddens, or the hawthorn blooms,
And more but know the summer by its coming
    An awful visitant to loathsome rooms.
Yea, while the land hath fair and favour'd daughters,
    Dwelling as in a beautiful calm dream,
Thousands, like roseleaves cast on surging waters,
    Are lost amid the city's fierce life-stream.

All the year round is there no bold endeavour
    To crush those ancient ills and errors sore
While this new-breaking wave of God's for-ever
    Sighs solemnly along the tide-worn shore.
There is, there is a noble grand aggression,
    A stir among the nations that shall last
Till each time-honour'd wrong and old oppression
    Be talked of with the ruins of the past.

All the year round: fresh knowledge lights the journey,
    There is some forward step by Freedom made,
And knightly hearts as ever beat at tournay
    Go forth to seek adventures undismay'd,
Fight Prejudice and Pride, and leave them wounded,
    Slay giant ills, set gentle mercies free;
Let the retreat of old Romance be sounded,—
    Ours is a higher, holier chivalry.

All the year round a new crusade is preaching,
   The Cross to rescue from hard hands that sought
To hide its light serene with sterner preaching,
   Than pity to the friendless and untaught;
And gracious men seek out the city-heathen,
    The lost young children in each sinful haunt,
Touch, like their Master, hearts that vice hath wreathen
    With life-long bonds, nor bid the worst avaunt.

All the year round the poets with more power
    Catch up the lovely strain,—Goodwill to men!
And War, the gorgeous demon, learns to cower
    Before the mighty wizards of the pen.
And the peer finds within his toiling neighbour
    A soul no longer stinted with coarse food,
And, proud to join the brotherhood of labour,
    Works in his order for the common good.

All the year round a clearer faith is shining,
    And the long yearnings after rest increase;
Yet shall the world, her weary head reclining,
    Dream a new poem on the lap of Peace;
For Truth is opening wide her bright Evangel,
    And the felt darkness over nations spread
Is but the shadow of that hovering angel
    Soon to descend with sunshine on its head.

All the year round the watchful Heaven is o'er us,
    And Hope's melodious whisper floateth by
That the old poets' spring-day is before us,
    A sacred bridal of the earth and sky.
When Heaven's pure spirit shall about us gather
    Its infinite calm and lovingness draw near,
Till thankful Earth shall feel its present Father,
    His temple's outer court all round the year.

ANOTHER LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER.

THE merit of Gulliver would have been
essentially what it is now, if Lucian had never
written his True History; and Lucian would
have mocked at folly and jested at pretension,
if Aristophanes had never ridiculed presumption
or laughed at absurdity. Difference in
form there might have been; but given the
genius and the circumstances, the man and
the hour, and the same mental explosion
would have occurred under the igniting spark
of favourable occasion. In a secondary
degree, however, the influence of predecessors
can no more be overlooked in art than in
science. There is, indeed, an inevitableness
of discovery in the scientific world which
finds no exact correspondent in that of fiction.
If a Newton, as the legend goes, had not seen
that accommodating apple fall, somebody else
would have had his eye on it. If this
horticultural astronomer had failed to reveal the
most universal of material facts, the demand
for revelation would have been no less